Words and names · 3 min read
How to pronounce tasbih
Tasbih is pronounced tas-BEEH — two syllables, stress on the second, with a long ee and a breathy h at the end.
The final sound is the one that causes trouble. It is not the English h in hat, and it is not a k or a hard ch. This page breaks the word into its parts, marks the two sounds English does not have, and covers the related phrases people usually want to say correctly at the same time.
The word, part by part
Arabic تَسْبِيح. Three pieces.
Put together: tas — BEEH. Do not stress the first syllable; TAS-bih is the most common English mistake and it sounds noticeably wrong to an Arabic ear.
- tas — as in the English word toss but with a short a, closer to the a in cat.
- bee — a long ee, as in see. Not bih. This is where the stress falls.
- h — the Arabic letter ha (ح), a breathy sound made in the throat.
- Full form in IPA: /tasˈbiːħ/.
The sound English does not have
The final ح is a voiceless pharyngeal fricative. English has nothing like it, which is why transliterations write it as a plain h and everyone then says the wrong thing.
A way to find it: whisper the word hat, then tighten the muscles at the very back of your throat as though you were breathing on a cold window to fog it — but from lower down. It is a friction sound, not a puff of air.
If you cannot make it yet, a plain English h is understood everywhere and is not a fault. Nobody will misunderstand you.
Regional pronunciations
The word is said differently across the Muslim world and none of these is wrong.
Written transliteration follows the same pattern: tasbih, tasbeeh, tesbih, all for one word.
- Arabic — tas-BEEH, with the full pharyngeal ح.
- Urdu and Hindi — tas-BEEH, the final consonant usually softer.
- Turkish — TES-bih, with an e in the first syllable and stress that shifts forward.
- Indonesian and Malay — tas-BIH, the final sound light.
The phrases people ask about next
These usually come up in the same breath as tasbih.
The one worth practising is Alhamdulillah, because English speakers often insert an extra vowel and say al-ham-do-li-lah with equal weight on every syllable, which flattens it.
- SubhanAllah — sub-HAAN-al-laah. Stress on HAAN. The a in the second syllable is long.
- Alhamdulillah — al-HAM-du-lil-LAAH. Two stresses, the stronger at the end.
- Allahu Akbar — al-LAA-hu AK-bar.
- La ilaha illallah — laa i-LAA-ha il-lal-LAAH.
- Misbaha — mis-BA-ha, the bead strand.
- Dhikr — the dh is one sound, like the th in this, not a d followed by an h. ZIKR is the common regional pronunciation.
Common mistakes
Four errors account for almost all mispronunciation of this word.
- Stressing the first syllable: TAS-bih instead of tas-BEEH.
- Shortening the ee: tas-bih instead of tas-BEEH.
- Turning the final ح into a k or a hard ch sound.
- Reading the b as a v under the influence of some regional accents.
Where to go next
For what the word means rather than how it sounds, see tasbih meaning in English. For the spellings and why they differ, see dhikr, zikr, adhkar and azkar.